


cut down to the bone

by capeofstorm



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Character Study, Gen, POV Second Person, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-28
Updated: 2019-04-28
Packaged: 2020-02-09 07:16:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,936
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18633406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/capeofstorm/pseuds/capeofstorm
Summary: It’s not easy being ten and knowing these things about your family.





	cut down to the bone

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to **celestialskiff** for betaing this for me. Not Ameri-picked, all mistakes my own.
> 
> Didn't think I'd have so many Alice feels but here we go.

It’s not easy being ten and knowing these things about your family: that your mother takes lovers (so does your father) and that your father loves her so much he’s ready to kill himself (when he’s not too taken up by his new lover, or by another ancient Greek manuscript) and that in the middle of it all neither you nor your brother are not enough to keep them together, not enough to make this family normal, to make it whole and happy. 

Helping your mother hide her affairs from your father breaks you in a way that nothing else does. It breaks you differently, seeing your father threaten to kill himself when he discovers those affairs, when you realise that you didn’t cover her tracks well enough. And the guilt is too much for your child body and brain to deal with, so you do the only thing you can – you start withdrawing, even from your big brother.

For a girl who’s lived with magic, you believe in fairy tales too much. You know fairies aren’t good, that they’re tricksters but there’s a part of you that clings to the fairy tales of happy ever afters for beautiful princesses and smart knights. It’s a part of you that your parents praise, in that belittling way of theirs, “ _Alice is very smart and so innocent – she still believes in fairy tales!_ ” they tell their friends as they parade you and Charlie around, speaking of your grades and magical talent, dismissing you as soon as you’ve convinced everyone what wonderful children you are. 

There are no dolls for you, only dusty tomes and educational toys. No Nickelodeon, that’d rot your brain. Instead, you watch your brother change a marble into a galloping horse, sometimes one that looks like an actual horse, sometimes a blob of air and glass, a deformed shape that echoes how you feel inside. Charlie’s face scrunches up in disgust and defeat and you distract him with something, swiping the melted glass into your pocket to inspect later, in your room, to try and figure out why you felt like crying when you saw it, why it felt like Charlie knew what was inside of you when he made it.

You know you don’t belong anywhere, aside from Charlie’s side. He’s your big brother, has been there since you were born, since you were conceived (and wasn’t that a great conversation, your parents telling you all about _how_ and _when_ you were conceived) so you knew you belonged with him. He always made sure to leave enough space on the couch for you to sit next to him as you both studied, he always knew which scrunchies you wanted to put in your hair that day, he could read the room better than you, so he’d get you out before your parents started arguing. You knew who you were with Charlie – you were his sister and that was enough.

At school, you want to belong, so badly. So you do what you can, you read and do your homework and get the best grades but you still don’t belong. Not with your fellow students, not even with the teachers of the elementary and then middle school. You convince your parents to home school you through high school – you study on your own to get your SATs – while also studying magic because you are a Quinn and that means something in the magical community. You convince your parents this was a good thing, you studying at home and they don’t take much convincing, too busy with other things. Too busy to notice you withdrawing, more, after the latest social gaffe, this one bad enough that you want to _die_ and only Charlie keeps you afloat. You never speak of it to anyone aside from Charlie, who is eighteen now, and leaves before dinner one night and comes back late, pale, sweaty and shaky with magical exhaustion. “ _No one will remember_ ,” is all he says and you know his spell will hold true. No one will know you made a pass at your math teacher after staying behind to ask about extra credit. 

College is not what you expected, not with your love of learning and books and rules. You love rules, you love learning the rules of physics, of magic, you love the rules of society. But college, even Princeton, is not really what you expected, more party than work. A well meaning sophomore roommate takes you out to a party with her, you teetering around in borrowed three inch heels and bandage dress you’re pretty sure your mother owns, too; you go to the party and meet her friends, some of them wanting to be very friendly with you, very quickly. You’re not a virgin, you’ve had sex – living in the house you did, you knew it was something normal, even if sometimes your lip curled in distaste when you thought about it – and the guy who’s talking to you keeps his eyes on yours, instead of your boobs, so you give him your number. And he’s playing for keeps, it seems, because aside from a kiss when you leave the party, he is kind, attentive and doesn’t let his hands wander. You’re too cynical to hope for much but that part of you that still holds on to fairy tales pokes her head out tentatively.

Greg was – is – a great guy. He asks you out on a date and you went and had a great time – talking about philosophy and Greek mythology (he was impressed by your knowledge and didn’t seem to be put off by it, which was new). Kissing him is great, and he makes you feel safe so you continue seeing him, looking forward to catching a quick lunch with him on Tuesdays between your Personal Identity Philosophy and Advanced Electromagnetism lectures. And if he asks you to sit in his lap and tells you he loves your legs in those high heels and mini skirts, that they make you look like a naughty school girl, that all the guys are jealous of him and the fact that he’s with you, well, that’s alright, even though it makes you feel like you’re being put on display again. You use your mother’s credit card and buy yourself a new wardrobe filled with exactly that and feel a spark of pride next time you see Greg and he can’t take his eyes off you. (The little part of you, the one who loves fairy tales, hides deep and far and you pretend to feel happy about that, instead of wounded and sad. You’re too old to be childish, anyway, and this is what love and relationships are. You have to compromise, otherwise you’ll end up in a relationship like your parents, and gods know you don’t want that.)

Things with Greg end amicably enough – he’s graduated and you’re realist enough to know that your relationship wouldn’t survive being out of Princeton. Besides, you miss doing magic, you miss feeling it crawling along your skin. There were only so many times you could hide away to perform spells in your dorm. All through this, you’re emailing Charlie and hearing about Brakebills, the parties, the Physical Kids, magic, the weight of being a _Quinn_ at Brakebills. And you know, deep down, that you don’t want to go there. All you want, really, is a quiet life filled with magic and books and learning new things. You tell your parents you’re not going to Brakebills over Ides of March – fitting, you thought – and they tell you that you’ll change your mind. 

Only Charlie understands, because he always does. He understands the way you hold onto your elbows tightly enough to leave bruises, understands that you don’t know who you are, who you belong with because there’s no longer any space next to Charlie, through no fault of his or yours. Siblings grow apart, especially when college is involved. But Charlie understands and he never makes you feel bad about it. He says he supports your choice to never set foot in Brakebills and you thank him by nudging your shoulder into his. You’re ready to graduate from Princeton and the world is your oyster. You’re thinking of going to Europe to research early Slavic magic and you’re excited about it. You’ve made lists of things to pack, you’ve put expandable charms on your bags – thanks, Hermione Granger – and all you need to do is sit your final exams and then you’re free.

And then you’re falling and your entire body has shattered, bones splintered into tiny fragments, muscle torn apart but that’s nothing on the agony and emptiness that’s inside of you because Charlie’s dead and you don’t even know how he died, you don’t even get to see his body because there is none. Your parents are distraught but your father doesn’t threaten to kill himself, and your mother performs grief well, attention all on her and you’re left with so many questions that no one has answers for. So you do what you swore you wouldn’t.

You go to Brakebills, the one place you never wanted to go to, the one place where your excellence is taken for granted. People make fun of you, people like Margo Hanson and Eliot Waugh and Quentin Coldwater. You know you’re a joke to them from day one, even though Quentin is more of a loser than you are. But you can see the way Eliot looks at Quentin and even though Charlie was always better at reading people, you know what you’re seeing, you’ve seen it enough in your life to recognise lust. Your brother’s dead, and nothing makes sense, so you think maybe you and Quentin would be a good idea. Or maybe you just want to throw a spanner in Eliot’s plans. You know it’s not but you don’t dismiss the idea because Quentin might be a loser but you see yourself in him. You see how much he loves Fillory and you think about your younger self, about the way she used to love fairy tales and you feel seen. Quentin is safe, paying attention to you and not just your body or your brain but everything and you decide to be selfish and let yourself consider the idea of falling in love with him, just a little.

Which is why it hurts so much when Quentin doesn’t understand that you can reach Charlie, when he boxes him before you have the chance to ask your questions, before you have the chance to say all the things you needed to say. You’ve fooled yourself into thinking that Quentin understood you even when you didn’t understand yourself.

There isn’t much left for you in Brakebills, not after Charlie is gone for good. So you go back to your Grandmother’s and you stay there in the garden, making potions and casting spells and feeling too much and nothing at all. You don’t know what to do, who you are, where to go. But your fingers know how to hold a knife, how to pluck lavender stems, how to extract the essence of it and distill it to its purest form for potions. So you continue doing that for as long as you can stand and sometimes your Grandmother has to come and lead you to bed, has to help you take off your clothes and put on your pyjama, has to murmur a sleeping spell with her fingers over your eyes because you can’t rest otherwise.

You fall asleep and dream of nothing but darkness.


End file.
